Thread: Painting and body work questions

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Originally Posted by drec

Do you know the history of the car, as far as the body goes? Like was this a car that ran around your town for a number of years and then you bought it? If most of the paint is good, I think that I would just repair/paint the areas that are bad and enjoy the car. I can just see spending a lot of money on it, unless you are looking for a show car.

My dad gave it to me 7 or 8 years ago and finally pulled it out of storage after sitting in there for 23 years. I am keeping it for a long time, so I want to spend the money and do it right. the next one I will built for fun.

Originally Posted by KOULAIDE

My dad gave it to me 7 or 8 years ago and finally pulled it out of storage after sitting in there for 23 years. I am keeping it for a long time, so I want to spend the money and do it right. the next one I will built for fun.

That's cool, I understand that it is worth keeping and now know a little more about the car. I'm not sure that I would rush right out and have the car stripped, to go for a repaint though. I would find a shop or someone that you can trust and ask them to look at it and give a recommendation. If the car is as nice at it seems, the paint might be repaired to give you more years of service. Like what was mentioned before, go get an estimate or two or three.

to give you an idea media blasting and epoxy will run you around 2500 . bodywork is an unknown , some cars have twice the hours of bodywork as paint. depending on the level of detail you want paint alone will run 4500 to 8000 . rehabbing a body is much more involved than a paint job. rule of thumb it is at least a third of the value of the car when finished. in some cases more.

In the late 60's early 70's I was involved in a build of a MG TD classic.(looks like a mini Ford roadster) I was bought out of Texas with a 283 three speed stick and solid leafed spring rear end.When we finished it has a 327 Man-A-Fre carb'ed engine with a close ratio 4speed stick and a vett swing rear end.Then came the paint and body work.The color was to be black of course.Back then as many layers of black lacquer each wet sanded you could do was the art of the day.So we stripped it bare.What a mistake that was!!!.Every imperfection in the medal that was handled when painted at the factory showed up in orange peel.We must have spot putted and stripped the car 4 or 5 times.Any pit or mark that was apart of the car's metal required intensive work.This was a totally rust/accident free car before we stripped it.I swore I would never strip to bare metal a car again because of this.But in the end once it was finished,as a lark,we entered the car into a Clutch Artiest(sp) car show in Buffalo,NY and took second.The car was driven good weather regularly.